With no sunlight, the place resembles the Cimmerians’ land;
I walked the staircase down where they live in endless night;
a tide of youngsters carried me away to the gate of Hades,

to a bar, underground; I made with her a libation of whisky,
was alike a dead, other girls with red eyes approached us,
she moaned: 'they brought me as unburied dead; take me
out, stranger, send me home, let me be buried as human’.
I swore to buy her body for one night and then set her free.

'You’re a good guy’, said Agamemnon, a drunk customer,
‘watch out women; my spouse revenged me for my error'.
Client Tiresias foretold: 'You’ll reach your lovable home! '

Then, in a corner, I saw a pale woman same as my mom.
How come she is here, a maid in an underground bar?
In smoke and darkness she seemed dead. 'My child' says
'so many years, here, I missed you starving and suffering'

Three times I tried to approach but her shape escaped me,
a shade of a dream; inaccessible to hug her with my arms,
my words were birds she couldn’t catch. She lisped 'nekyia,
our bones are fleshes without nerves; the fire tames us all.'

Yet her soul was flowing as a dream and was laughing;
even Achilles, the chief gang of the bar, would envy her,
for he would like to live on earth a modest life as my mom.

'Son, return home, safe', wished me, 'my life is your history'.
Then I ascended the stairs to go find the smoke in the light.



© JosephJosephides

Joseph S. Josephides

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rhapsody-descending-down-to-hades/